1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to liquid crystal display devices, and particularly to a liquid crystal display device in which column spacers are interposed between substrates.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a typical active-matrix liquid crystal display device, a liquid crystal layer is provided and sealed between a pair of substrates facing each other. One of the pair of substrates is a TFT array substrate over which a large number of scan lines and signal lines are horizontally and vertically arranged and a large number of pixel electrodes and thin film transistors (TFTs) are provided corresponding to the respective intersections between the scan lines and the signal lines. Over the other of the pair of substrates, a counter electrode is provided. Furthermore, in order to achieve a uniform gap (substrate distance) between the substrates opposed to each other, column spacers are interposed between the substrates.
The active-matrix liquid crystal display device employs 1H-inversion driving, in which the polarity of writing is inverted on each line basis, or 1F-inversion driving, in which image signals with the same polarity are written in each one field. It is known that in the 1F-inversion driving, because voltages with the same sign are applied to all the pixel electrodes, the influence of a lateral electric field between the pixel electrodes is absent and thus a transmittance decrease and light leakage due to disclination (disturbance in liquid crystal alignment) can be suppressed.
However, it has been found that even when the 1F-inversion driving is employed, the disturbance in liquid crystal alignment arises in the periphery of column spacers. To address this, there has been proposed a configuration in which areas on which no pixel electrode is formed are provided in the peripheries of column spacers. According to this proposal, in this configuration, external light incident on the pixel electrode (reflective film) part around the column spacer is not reflected, which can avoid the occurrence of light leakage in this part at the time of black displaying (see Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-177848 (Paragraphs 0027 and 0029 in particular, hereinafter Patent document 1)).